Olivia and I went to Iowa City yesterday for another followup on her new eardrum. It ended up feeling like a real waste of 6 hours of driving. The doctor took a look in her ear, declared she had an ear infection, and sent us home with an augmentin prescription and some ear drops. We’re to go back in 6 weeks.

Her ear troubles have not slowed her down any at learning the piano. She played two Christmas hymns in church Sunday for the offertory music and did a wonderful job! Then she came home and figured out Jingle Bells and Silent Night by ear.

Posting may be scarce this week as I’m spending time on the gifts I’m making and on cookie making and bread baking. I have to say that despite the crazy busyness of the season I am truly enjoying almost every minute of it, and managing to just be in the moment and not let things done or undone stress me out. Creating gifts and making food for people are two things that bring me a lot of joy.

I’m still ruminating on a post about Matt’s coral. It’s a difficult thing to capture in a picture, unless you happen to have a helicopter to get you a birdseye view. I may just have to draw a picture of it instead. Also still in the works is a post about the corncrib, to give us a chance to pick the brains of Christian and any other engineer-types reading this little blog about how to renovate it.